Sanding Maple

I'm trying to sand a maple neck and was wondering what the best way to do this is? Sanding paper will take an age. I've some dremel sanding drums, but these are incredibly small...Any ideas? Would a belt sander be any better or is there some other piece of kit I have yet to stumble upon?

I'm trying to sand a maple neck and was wondering what the best way to do this is? Sanding paper will take an age. I've some dremel sanding drums, but these are incredibly small...Any ideas? Would a belt sander be any better or is there some other piece of kit I have yet to stumble upon?

I was afraid you'd say use hands....The neck in question is a self made neck and isn't yet in shape, so I have to sand a few millimeters down each side to get the neck width correct.I'm not looking for an absolutely perfect finish - this is a cigar box style guitar (except with a biscuit tine)

I was afraid you'd say use hands....The neck in question is a self made neck and isn't yet in shape, so I have to sand a few millimeters down each side to get the neck width correct.I'm not looking for an absolutely perfect finish - this is a cigar box style guitar (except with a biscuit tine)

Thanks so far anyway!

I didn't realize you were actually shaping a neck, I thought you were removing finish.

I would bandsaw the neck to within about 1/16" of it's final width and do a finish cut with a router and template. Other than that, I might use a spokeshave.

Hahahaha, reminds me of when I shaped a neck using a two-fisted grinder with a sanding pad on it. Doesn't quite work right. I'd recommend using a bandsaw to rough it out, then a template with a router to get it close, then a rasp to get the ends to the right shape and a spokeshave or a drawknife to get the rest to shape. Then comes the sanding. Sanding should not be used to make things the shape you want. It should just be used to remove the marks left by the other tools.

Quote by Øttər

Ninja, I dunno who you are but I like you.... so far....

Quote by Shaggy Shadric

My Teddy bear is God. DO NOT QUESTION MY TEDDY!

Quote by MatrixClaw

It's a good thing I like boobs or I'd be more pissed that you just bumped a 2 week old thread for that

Sanding is not the best way to shape something, its more of a finishing shapeing method, but do what everybody else said, and when your done rough shapeing it, hand sand it till you get all the minior things you want, like, smoothness, shiny finish, curves on the corners, no sharp corners, things like that.

If you use sandpaper for anything than minor finishing, you should make sure its the red cloth backed type, or it wont last long. 60grit or lower can be used to shape, but not ideal. 80-150 to remove tool marks 150+ for finishing:

Lets say the neck will be 17mm + fingerboard

First cut to 30mm with ripsaw or bandsaw

Use spokeshave/carving plane to rough shape the curve, get down to 20-25mm. If you go further be careful of tearout, especially laminate necks.

Make 100% sure the fingerboard side is still perfectly flat (you done this first ofcourse!) - use a large base like a jointer plane, with a long length of 60 grit paper

to get 23mm down to 17mm Im using a drill with a 3" rubber pad/sanding disk. Its cheap, but works very very well, and its fast. It makes a lot of dust Move up and down the neck in a straight lines, take off about 0.5mm each and you can curve it very well.